BELAGA: Belaga assemblyman Liwan Lagang has good news — the 150-km Belaga-Ng Merit Road has just been approved by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak during the former’s recent visit to Putrajaya.

As such, he pleaded with the state government to speed up the land alienation process so that the road could be built as soon as possible. It is understood that the road would be built in the same mode as the recently completed Belaga-Mejawah Road, which is through the Jiwa Murni programme.

However, that 34-km long road has been nicknamed as “the roller coaster road” by its users because of its rough terrain and sharp turns.

As it is the only road that linked Belaga to the rest of Sarawak, it was thus Liwan’s hope that the Public Works Department would take over it and upgrade it into a proper road.

“We are a cultured people who know how to be appreciative when something good is done to us. We thanked the government for giving us the road, although it may be quite a dangerous stretch of road,” said Liwan.

He pointed out that as one of the biggest state constituencies (in terms of area), Belaga people have never failed the government in any elections. On the same note, he reminded the state government to give back to the people what they deserve after years of granting support to the government.

“Belaga is the largest economic contributor to the state. The district is producing timber. It has two big dams. We are not crybabies, what we ask for is – give back to us that is equivalent to our contribution,” said Liwan at the opening of the bi-annual Belaga Rainforest Challenge 2014.

Though one of the biggest contributors in the state revenue, Belaga lags far behind other districts in basic infrastructure. Apart from the road facilities, Liwan pointed out that though Belaga is the biggest district in terms of size, the district did not even have a stadium.

And taking advantage of the presence of Tourism Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Openg, Liwan also asked for a Belaga waterfront to be built.

“As an assistant minister (of Culture and Heritage), I have the opportunity to travel far and wide in the state and I found that in other towns such as Song and Kapit, the waterfront project is going into Phase II or Phase III whereas here in Belaga, we don’t even have a waterfront,” said Liwan, reminding the government not to sideline Belaga in development.

Seeing the great potential of Bakun Lake as a tourism attraction that would bring about many economic spin-offs, as in the case of Belaga, Liwan asked for the Bakun Tourism Master Plan to be accelerated so that the socio-economic status of the local people can be improved.